Does someone with ASD know they have it/are different?

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naturalplastic
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16 Nov 2017, 5:57 pm

How much do you know about his family, parents and siblings?

I dunno. I am thinking that maybe you might make small talk about stuff like "which parent were you closer to?".

If he talks about his family he might reveal stuff like if his parents also think he is odd, and whether they may even worry about it, and whether or not they have sent him to shrinks about it, or not.



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16 Nov 2017, 6:44 pm

csk1234 wrote:
All these things came out after some weeks into us being together, and keep getting 'worse' as if he is not trying to be 'normal' anymore. I don't know if he is diagnosed or not, but he never spoke to me about it anyway.

So my question is, does someone with ASD know they have it or know they are different than NT's? And if so, should I bring this up? Tell him I know/suspect too? Or should I not mention it until he maybe some day mentions it himself (if he even knows)?

I used to think I was 'normal' and everyone else was weird. Did I know that I was different? I knew that everyone else was different. If I would have grown up in Japan, I am very certain that I would have never even been diagnosed. Why? Because it's perfectly normal to not make overt eye contact, to be reserved, to not be expressly emotive in Japan. My former girlfriend was HK Chinese and she never found any of my behaviour not normal. It was my American bosses who felt that I didn't behave normal. Your boyfriend is very young and I think it wouldn't be helpful for him to be told that he isn't normal. Autism is not something new and high functioning autism used to simply be accepted as an eccentricity. If you want to tell him then nothing I say will stop you from doing so. My American bosses wanted me to multi-task, be more social, critiqued my lack of eye contact, my posture, and my speech patterns. Notice that they did not critique my work performance. The critique was just about behaviour that was normal for me but not for them. I hope that you to think about what it is that you want to achieve by telling him.


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ZombieBrideXD
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17 Nov 2017, 2:27 am

before i was diagnosed i had no idea that Body language existed, therefore i didn't know i couldn't read it, i didn't know i had sensory sensitivity because i had no words to describe it, i didn't know everyone did not feel emence pain when hearing an alarm or a airplane. i used to have shutdowns and meltdowns and had no idea how to describe them and just thought everyone experienced it. i didn't know my interests were more intense than others, i didnt know thinking in pictures was unique. the diagnoses gave me a vocabulary. i remember reading about ASD for the first time and thinking " where has this been all my life?!"

however i remember feeling like i was different without being able to put my fingers on it. i remember not understanding how i would copy a person and then get told what i was doing was "inappropriate" or "rude" or "too loud" and just feeling like my brain and my body were separate things. people with ASD tend to have a poor sense of self awareness and that can make it hard to recognize our own ASD without it being pointed out.


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csk1234
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17 Nov 2017, 3:23 am

Thanks everyone for your answers/advice! It means a lot to me. It was never really my intention from the start to tell him about my suspicions. I just thought that if I tell him, and he knew already, that he could be more comfortable around me and not trying to act like he is the same as me. But since I don't know if he knows I decided not to say anything. Sometimes when we have an argument he tells me he thinks he is a bad person, or he is not capable of 'real love' and he thinks he makes too many mistakes in communication, so I'm not sure what he feels or knows.

I tried to have a conversation about his family, but it's hard to keep him focused or he doesn't want to talk about it. I know he lives with his parents, he has a younger sister which he gets along with very well and an older brother which he doesn't talk to. He doesn't spend much time with his parents, cause when he comes home from school he goes straight to his room to play video games, then has dinner with them +-15minutes, then goes back to his room to play games until he goes to sleep. He told me I'm the most important person for him in the world, not his parents or family? So I don't know if they are close.



Mr SmokeTooMuch
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17 Nov 2017, 9:43 am

I still think that you should tell him .
I lived without knowing about ASD for 37 years , and there're too many things I regret now , which could have been prevented , had I known . :(


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caffeinekid
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17 Nov 2017, 10:00 am

naturalplastic wrote:
Sounds like he is ASD.

Do ASD folks know that they are different?

Well...if you really are ASD then the world pretty much let's you know that you are different in no unsubtle terms, by rubbing your face in dogshit from day one.

So I would say that most of us know that we are different. Though we may not know exactly in which ways our thinking differs from that of NTs, and that's where a diagnosis can help one to understand the dynamics of how we are different

If the two of you are like college aged then he MUST know that he is square peg by this time.


I've always known I don't fit in with people in general but I never knew why and just assumed I was wrong and broken. If enough people tell you that you are a crappy useless person you eventually believe them.

There was no diagnosis of these kinds of things in my school in the 70s and 80s, you just got shoved into a class with the rest of the no-hopers and left to fend for yourself.

I wish I had known about ASD, or whatever they prefer to call it these days, when I was growing up. I may have been able to articulate how I needed help rather than assuming the rest of the world was fine and I was just broken or made wrong.


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17 Nov 2017, 10:00 am

ZombieBrideXD wrote:

however i remember feeling like i was different without being able to put my fingers on it. i remember not understanding how i would copy a person and then get told what i was doing was "inappropriate" or "rude" or "too loud" and just feeling like my brain and my body were separate things. people with ASD tend to have a poor sense of self awareness and that can make it hard to recognize our own ASD without it being pointed out.


I can relate to this part. I also had no words to describe how I was different except for saying I am not like the other kids, I am always treated different and kids are always mean to me and kids have different rules than me. But no one still understood me when I used these terms and it was very hard to get taken seriously. I think reading about ASD has also given me more words to describe it now that I know what was going on. I also thought everyone wanted me to mind read and I didn't even know people did fake reassurance or just said things just to be nice. I just said the truth and that could have been another reason why kids thought I was mean. Back then I just thought it was their issue because they asked for an opinion.


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17 Nov 2017, 10:04 am

caffeinekid wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
Sounds like he is ASD.

Do ASD folks know that they are different?

Well...if you really are ASD then the world pretty much let's you know that you are different in no unsubtle terms, by rubbing your face in dogshit from day one.

So I would say that most of us know that we are different. Though we may not know exactly in which ways our thinking differs from that of NTs, and that's where a diagnosis can help one to understand the dynamics of how we are different

If the two of you are like college aged then he MUST know that he is square peg by this time.


I've always known I don't fit in with people in general but I never knew why and just assumed I was wrong and broken. If enough people tell you that you are a crappy useless person you eventually believe them.

There was no diagnosis of these kinds of things in my school in the 70s and 80s, you just got shoved into a class with the rest of the no-hopers and left to fend for yourself.

I wish I had known about ASD, or whatever they prefer to call it these days, when I was growing up. I may have been able to articulate how I needed help rather than assuming the rest of the world was fine and I was just broken or made wrong.



LOL I just assumed it was because I was Beth and I assumed I had these invisible words written on me that I am different and people can just tell. I also thought there was a conspiracy against me. I just didn't know what was going on and it was my motivation to act normal and be like everyone else and learn the rules. TBH I think the teasing and being singled out did give me a push and I am not sure what I would have been like if that didn't happen.


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naturalplastic
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17 Nov 2017, 10:41 am

Actually as a couple you two sound a lot like my neurotypical girlfriend and I.
You two are teens, and we are middle aged, but.

For starters she is the main (and basically the only) person I ever talk to.



csk1234
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17 Nov 2017, 10:55 am

naturalplastic wrote:
Actually as a couple you two sound a lot like my neurotypical girlfriend and I.
You two are teens, and we are middle aged, but.

For starters she is the main (and basically the only) person I ever talk to.


I'm not a teen, 25 haha I am a bit older than my bf. Which is maybe why it works well at the moment. I would think girls his age or younger might have a harder time dealing with some of his behaviour.



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17 Nov 2017, 12:08 pm

It took me 40 years to accept the fact that I might be Autistic even though I've known all my life that I was very much different from the NTs around me. Every time I would read an article about Autistics and the symptoms and mannerisms it would terrify me because I always knew that I had alot in common with ASDs. So it was part denial and part fear of being mentally disabled in some way.

The strange thing is my parents were foster parents for most of my life and she took care of nothing but Autistic girls. So that put me even more on my guard and I didn't want to get lumped in with "that group". I think what I was most afraid of was the huge stigma that society has placed on Autistics like us.


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17 Nov 2017, 12:28 pm

A lot of people with ASDs know that they differ, but to what extent and what they think the difference is will vary. I knew I was somewhat different but I thought I was just another variation of the norm. A free spirit, or artistic or something (I never did find the exact right definition). I would never ever have thought I had something.

I knew I had problems with things others didn't, but I used other words for it than the ones you'd see in a criteria list.

As for whether you should talk to him about it... Some people would like that. I would not. If anyone had brought that up to me I would not have responded in a nice way and it could be a deal breaker for me personally. I would likely resent you for it permanently.
It depends on his personality.


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naturalplastic
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17 Nov 2017, 1:35 pm

csk1234 wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
Actually as a couple you two sound a lot like my neurotypical girlfriend and I.
You two are teens, and we are middle aged, but.

For starters she is the main (and basically the only) person I ever talk to.


I'm not a teen, 25 haha I am a bit older than my bf. Which is maybe why it works well at the moment. I would think girls his age or younger might have a harder time dealing with some of his behaviour.


That's....interesting.

If he is just now starting college then that means that you're seven years older than he is. My girlfriend is seven years older than I am!



csk1234
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18 Nov 2017, 1:18 am

naturalplastic wrote:
csk1234 wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
Actually as a couple you two sound a lot like my neurotypical girlfriend and I.
You two are teens, and we are middle aged, but.

For starters she is the main (and basically the only) person I ever talk to.


I'm not a teen, 25 haha I am a bit older than my bf. Which is maybe why it works well at the moment. I would think girls his age or younger might have a harder time dealing with some of his behaviour.


That's....interesting.

If he is just now starting college then that means that you're seven years older than he is. My girlfriend is seven years older than I am!


Yes indeed! Funny coincidence!



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18 Nov 2017, 5:31 pm

My mother never seemed to have a clue about her ASD - she just thought she was smart. Before Asperger's hit the DSM, I noticed I was from a dysfunctional family, but it was years before I saw a checklist for AS, and finally understood our lives.
I once suggested that an email contact on a tech list had AS. He was a successful family man in his 40s, and he agreed, quite chagrined.
Maybe try "Hey! I think I figured out why you are so good at ____________" first and take it from there.



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18 Nov 2017, 11:06 pm

I've never understood why I have such a hard time telling my wife I love her. She gets misty-eyed when I do, because it just finally pops out at odd moments. But echoing back, "I love you, too" when she tells me she loves me feels unnatural somehow.